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Month: February 2017

I just backed into a truck on my way home from the gym. I checked my read view mirror and my side view mirror on the left. I didn’t see him because he was on my right. My bumper and truck door are bent. The bumper has a tear in it. Why do they make it out of plastic? His truck is bent too. Scion Xb’s can fuck up trucks, apparently. The guy was cool about everything even though I didn’t have my insurance information. He took a picture of my license and the damage to my car. We exchanged phone numbers and I promised him the information by tomorrow or the next day.

BUT! My life is still mildly fucked up because I just learned that I’m not covered by my dad’s insurance like I thought I was. My brother’s name appears on the policy as the owner of my car. I don’t know why we have it set up that way. Anyone who gets into an accident with me will know I’M the driver. I don’t know what to do. My dad will have to talk to the insurance agent and file a claim. He will have to lie in the process.

I did poorly on my programming test today. I find out for sure next week. I definitely used the wrong counter control variable in the while loop. Fuck. If I miss more than 10 points, I’ll have a B in the class, not good! I need an A or else I won’t get into my master’s program. Shit fuck balls.

In other news, I talked with my sister about building her a Magic: the Gathering deck. I know she really doesn’t want one but I want to make one for her that will make her celebrate like a little girl. WEEEEEEEE! But that’s never going to happen. I think I might just make myself another deck and have her play with that one if she ever wants to play.

In other OTHER news, I’m not going to work out today because I don’t have time. That’s a valid excuse, I need to spend time 4 hours studying tonight and I don’t have time for anything else. If you tuned in yesterday, you know I made the point that working out would help me do better in school. So, tomorrow, I will work out just like normal.

I’m writing this post because I’m pissed that I missed drum practice today. I can feel myself taking it lightly and that’s not good. My whole purpose in life is to get better at drums and to contribute music to the world. That’s my destiny, Lieutenant Dan. I want to be good enough to inspire other musicians to play. Then, they make music and inspire more people to play, and on and on and on. The more art we make the more human we are. Art is the heartbeat of mankind. It’s a reflection of our health. It tells us how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, what our troubles are, what we have to celebrate. It also heals, soothes, exhilarates, and releases us from our troubles. I want to make some, it sounds cool. I’m getting this curious feeling from just talking about it that I’m accomplished enough that I should relax. But I’m nowhere near good enough!!!! I’ll need another 10 years before I’m even tolerable! And then I’ll need to practice even more to build my own style.

I’ve been playing music for about ten years now. I’ve been serious about it for about five years now. I’m settled on playing the drums as my main instrument and I’ve been playing drums for a year and 8 months.

I’m making too many exceptions now and I know it. Drumming and music is my purpose and I need to pratice 2 hours per day 6 days per week for now. Soon I’ll need to pratice 4 hours per day.

I woke up on time today, but the rest of the day has been a complete failure. After playing guitar for an hour in the morning. I decided that I would have a snooze. I tried sleeping for 2 hours, at peace with myself for my productive music session. Sleep didn’t really come because of my noisy sister.

My alarm went off at 12:45PM, telling me that I needed to get ready to play the drums. I planned on playing, but then I tried to go back to sleep again, saying to myself, “I don’t have THAT much to do today. I can just play drums later.” Again, sleep didn’t come because of my noisy sister. Really fucking noisy.

I got off the couch at 1:30 and promptly got an energy drink. Planning to practice right away. I just procrastinated, even more, vacillating between the thought of drumming and the thought of studying for my exam.

I finally sat down in front of the computer at 2:10, but I went on Facebook. Then, I turned on Self-Control and decided that I should learn about self-discipline.

I basically learned that I need to meditate, exercise, and sleep well. This is the fucking advice for EVERYTHING! WTF?

About meditating. . .

I tried it a few times during college and then again with my various therapists afterward. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t like it either. All it did was rejuvenate me, and I didn’t like the process. Tim Ferriss, blogger, author, investor, podcaster and amy idol, meditates every day and so do the top-performers he interviews. I’m having doubt that I can realistically make this a part of my daily routine. I know that I can do it if . . .

BRB, I need to feed the cat and scoop his litter. . .

Okay.

I need to find some specific time during the day I can meditate. In the mornings would be good. . . I can meditate for 10 minutes from 9:40 to 9:50. Perfect. I just set alarms before I wr0te that last thing.

About exercise . . .

I’ve been lifting, then walking 4 miles per day, 5 days per week. I was 5 miles initially but I change it to 4 miles so I would have time to write blog posts. I want to change it to 6 days per week, Sunday through Friday. I know I can definitely do this no problem. I just have to make sure that I don’t make excuses. Today, I didn’t go because I wanted to study instead. But, according to information I got online, exercise helps your brain and it helps you become more disciplined. So, I’m just hurting myself if I don’t exercise.

About sleeping well . . .

I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep for the past 2 weeks. At 10:30, an alarm goes off that reminds me to get ready for bed. I’m usually on Facebook at this time and I’m usually making a post about the good things that happened during the day. . . or I’m just wasting time. I brushing my teeth is more like pulling teeth. I take 2 minutes and I hate it. I delay it as much as possible. This makes me late getting to bed sometimes. This is when I really need self-discipline. If I get to bed late, I won’t get good sleep, and that sucks away your willpower. Vicious cycle . . . I guess I can make my teeth-brushing less painful by watching a video while I brush. Yeah that’s what I’ll do. Aside from this, I need to stop my caffeine intake at about 3:30 everyday.

I’m losing weight fast on the Slow-Carb Diet. I was 210lbs at the beginning of the year and now I’m 197. I’m having this strange feeling like I’ve done enough work and that I can eat whatever I want now. But I know my work isn’t done until I’m 175 lbs. I only have about 20 more to lose! I’m feeling like I am a fat person at heart and that it’s strange for me to keep losing weight. But I know this isn’t true. I’ve only been fat since 2014, and I gained all of my weight that year. I’m actually a skinny person and I’m fit, too. I’m getting this weird feeling like I’m not that excited about losing the weight that I’ve lost already. It seems to be just a routine thing for me now. But I know I will feel a lot better when I look better. I will be more confident about my appearance and I will be able to have the skinny punk look that I want. Fat punks just don’t make sense.

I feel depressed and that is exactly why I need to write. I was thinking about many things today -the overall purpose of my life, the current state that I’m in, social life. . .

The overall purpose of my life is help people in some way. I specifically want to support entrepreneurship and education. I want to enable people to bring their ideas to life. I’m thinking that I could create a business that simply gives money to educational and entrepreneurial programs. Not very creative. I’m also thinking about starting some kind of incubator. I’m feeling embarrassed sharing my dreams right now and I shouldn’t be ashamed. If I’m not dreaming then I’m dead. I guess I feel embarrassed because I don’t know if I can do it or not. But I think that belief will come as I work toward the goal. As I keep making steps toward it, I will develop more faith that I can do it. I just have to make myself keep working at it having faith that I will develop more belief in myself more faith, and develop more knowledge and more confidence.

Today is sucking ass. If today had a mouth, then it would be full of poo because it sucks so much ass. And it’s all because I stayed up late browsing the Internet for places to Magic: the Gathering, which are the saddest places to get dates. I didn’t find any places at all.

My trusty alarms harangued me at 9 this morning with their normal petulance. I turned all three of them off and set my phone to wake me up at 10. I woke up again at 10 and set my phone to wake me up at noon. Wake me up when September ends.

At 12:30PM, I woke up and felt shitty. I ate eggs, then a burrito and iced coffee and Diet Mountain Dew. I watch New Girl on Netflix. Then a blur until 3pm. Then some more iced coffee and then a blur till now.

A memory of a phone call keeps recurring in my head. Three of my friends called me together about 3 years ago when I was in class. The phone call was out of the blue and it was about nothing. They each just said hi and it was really awkward. One of my friends asked me what I was doing with my life at the time. “I’m in college,” I said. “Well, that’s power right there,” he responded facetiously. I guess they called me to be dicks. I saw them once after that call, and now I don’t talk to them anymore besides on Facebook.

I think the call bothers me because it seemed pointless and awkward. Reading between the lines through the lens of my paranoia, I see that they called just to tell me that they don’t think of me highly anymore. I’m trying not to think that. And I’m trying not to care.

Here are some of the things I think about when I need to put on my ego armor:

I’m getting really distracted when studying. I find myself on Facebook and Instagram and random sites on the Internet. Today, I spent two hours of study time researching ways to prevent gum recession. I did come to some valuable insights, but I could’ve come to those same insights on a day when I didn’t need to study. From now on, I plan to save all my Internet bingeing for Friday nights and Saturdays, days when I skip studying already.

Speaking of cramping my study time, I feel distracted because I haven’t had nicotine for the past 24 hours. I keep thinking about having nicotine. I stopped on purpose, I’m doing it because nicotine causes your gums to recede and I’m having a major problem with that. I also feel distracted because I just switched from tea and energy drinks to 5-Hour Energy. Okay, fine -I’ve only just switched in the past two hours. But I’m committed to switching permanently because tea and energy drinks are very acidic, which is bad for my gums. We’ll see how long I last, I hope it’s a long time.

Overall, I think because of these recent changes in my intake of stimulants, I feel wispier, less anxious, and distracted. I still want a cigarette, but not that badly.

I just switched 0mg of nicotine in my vape and I feel really deprived. I don’t think I’m going to switch back to 3mg though. I’m really quite proud that I’ve lasted these past 3 hours. (3 hours!? that’s it!?) I normally puff away nonstop and I now that I’m not, I realize how addicted to nicotine I am. I think it’s only going to be a couple of days before I’m used to it. The goal is to quit using my vape permanently. I don’t want nicotine to control my life like it is right now. I quit smoking once before in Idaho. It took a couple of weeks but I eventually quit for two years, except for a few months when I was with a band and we all smoked a few cigarettes per week.

I think that I’m going to do it for good this time, maybe. I’m hopeful. I’m already feeling okay on 0mg of nicotine right now. I do crave smoking whenever I’m lost in thought or when I’m facing a mental task like thinking about what to write. I’m at a loss right now and I just vaped.

Quitting is hard, quitting anything is hard. habits that involve stopping an activity are harder than habits the require starting a new activity. In order to stop doing something, you need to replace it with something else. Habits occur in loops that start with a craving, goes to action, then ends with a reward. In order to stop a bad habit, you need the replace the action with something else that will give you the same reward. . . at least that’s the advice I got from the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I can think of habit that I formed over a year ago without using this method. I started eating well. I just decided that I was going to

I started eating well. I just decided that I was going to eat well and follow the Slow-Carb diet. I could eat as much as I wanted, I just needed to avoid white carbs, sugar, fruit, and dairy. I ate a lot at the beginning and I really ate a lot of calories. Now, I’m only eating 800 calories 5 days a week! I just started doing this last week, but I’ve been doing really well. I’m going to keep it going until I lose 15 more pounds. I lost 15 pounds since last year and I want to lose 15 more.